


Destined to love

by malecshm



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Eventual Smut, M/M, Mundane Magnus Bane/Mundane Alec Lightwood, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-06 23:12:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14067657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malecshm/pseuds/malecshm
Summary: And the man, he—Alec’s fated one—knows where to press down to make it even worse. Knows where it hurts the most. The man—his soulmate—has made Alec bleed, in the past, in other lifetimes. He’s scrapped against him, left him crooked and broken, and Alec, Alec’s made him bleed, too. Torn him open. Broken apart all the fragile beauty in him. Always desperate, desperate to keep or otherwise ruin for anybody else.





	1. Chapter 1

Alec falls in love when he’s 7. Peeking over his father’s tent to sneak glances at a grainy Japanese film—something in muted, green tint about preindustrial Japan, something with long shots of cherry blossoms, long forlorn glances, love.

Alec’s been watching for the past hour, kicking his legs restlessly, swatting at the lazy flies buzzing around his head, as his father screams about his wares. 

And it’s boring, in poor quality, flashing from behind a dusty panasonic, but it passes the time. Drags him away from the hot press of the California sun. The idle need to run and find his place. 

The protagonist stumbles after the heroine. Makes as if to grab at her. Tripping in his desperation. There’s a sharp cut to a fleeting, bronze ankle. The man’s broken eyes. (Alec gasps at that, and his father laughs from where he’s rearranging cosmetics). The man reaches out a feeble hand, and that bleeds into a change of scenes. The camera pans up a long, veiny arm. Drags over a high cheek, sharp eyes. A street sweeper, brushing away the cherry blossoms from the night before. (An insignificant, unnamed, uncredited extra, Alec later discovers).

And there’s a sudden jolt in Alec’s heart. Something like pieces sliding into place. He shifts in his seat, falls to his knees, and crawls over across the dirty swap mart tarp. Like a child—a younger child—heedless of his father’s sharp screan, the other tent owner’s little squeak of surprise. 

Alec is seven, thin-skinned, combative, tongue and brain and soul stumbling as he tries to acquaint himself with the affected monotony of the world, reconcile. 

Alec reaches out to brush his fingers against the dusty glass screen as his father scoops him up, apologizes in a speedy, but stilted, broken rush. 

And Alec protests, kicks, and squirms until he’s set down anew. He presses his nose so close that he can taste the dust specks, that his eyes cross. The scene has changed. But that pair of street sweeper eyes—for those tense few seconds the camera captured his face—Alec loves. Alec knows. Because in that moment, his heart—his soul—speaks. And Alec knows with a startling certainty that this—this—was a glimpse into his destiny. Why he was made. 

His father laughs about it—after Alec’s been forced to apologize, after he’s been scolded to the point of tears about proper behavior, about how you can’t just act on impulse; that’s not the way the world works and that’s not the way we raised you, that’s not... that’s not why we work hard—but indulges him later, jokes as he remarks on seeing the spark in those eyes once more. 

And the next morning, at the swap mart, after his father’s set up his stand, and after his mother’s baked an apology cake, his father reintroduces himself to their neighbor. Asks about the film. Alec hides behind his father’s leg, presses his face into his hip as money changes hands. 

But that certainty, that clarity remains. That he’s supposed to, supposed to—

 

“I want to be an actor,” he tells his parents over smothered tortas on cheap plastic tables. He pauses to take a sip of his horchata, squints down and traces patterns against the styrofoam cup as he mumbles. The warm drone of activity and the warm sun feel almost stifling as Alec stutters out that he just really really wants to be an actor. Not a doctor. Not an engineer. “I want to make people feel like what—”

His father sets down his sandwich, breathes deeply. Alec tenses in anticipation. But then his father cries. Big fat tears, his face contorting into something ugly and vulnerable, and Alec’s mother’s hand curls around his shoulder, squeezing hard as his father wheezes. 

Alec cries, too. 

“You can,” he gasps out, curving forward, hand heavy as it falls against Alec’s bent, trembling head. “You—you can.” 

And it’s a heavy weight on his thin shoulders. The burden of his father’s dream, his sacrifice, his approval. 

And Alec wipes at his nose with his shirt sleeve as his heart implodes from it. 

 

That’s the story that he recounts in his scholarship essay 10 years later. Zeroing in on eldest child diaspora angst. The vague knowledge of his father’s dream and the steady brush of warm, work-calloused fingers against Alec’s chin as his head lolled back towards the caress, mind lulled by the familiar delicate frailty of present tones. About channeling the ache, validating his parents’ wishes. Making it count. 

(He leaves out the part where he wears out that VHS tape to shreds, rewinding it over and over again, until that man’s eyes are burned into his irises, tattooed on his brain. How Alec dreams about him sometimes, too. How he scours the internet for his name. His face. His anything. And how it hurts in a strange way. Like blood rushing back to a limb that’s fallen asleep. Like a phantom ache in his bones. Only when the rain comes. Only when the moon shines. And how he knows—he almost remembers—but what exactly, with whom, when, he’s not quite sure. It only comes in flashes, in vivid almost-recollections that leave Alec gasping, twisted in his sheets. That he’s a constant, too)

It’s the memory he clings to through the painful semesters away from home, sustaining him through the long intervals between Skype calls and his mother’s cooking, through the bitter disappointments as Alec learns to work with his face, prettier than it should be honestly. Soft and delicate, but malleable. Hazel eyes, a button nose, too thick eyelashes, perpetually pursed lips; a sort of accessible attractiveness he twists, studies, breaks open, puts back together, as he slathers on makeup, as he rehearses lines, as he learns to put on another person’s skin. Wear another person’s sorrow, another person’s happiness. Speak as another soul. 

(Alec continues to ache, to itch to find his own skin. His own purpose beyond this)

 

And that’s the story he comes back to at 21; drained, frustrated, absentminded and apologetic, coming back to himself when Meliorn —director on a power trip—screams at him about messing up his hair, looking like a fucking idiot, as Alec scratches idly at his head, asks for his line. It’s the worst fucking tell, Meliorn had warned during preliminary auditions, again after he’d cast Alec as lead. Luke, Luke was lenient about it because you’re cute. But I won’t be because fuck you, Alec.

And Meliorn is small, but menacing, grating. It’s 8pm, and he means well. He means well. 

“Two fucking weeks,” he screeches nonetheless. “Two fucking weeks, Alec. You’re my lead—you can’t fucking do this to me.” 

“Mel—”

“You can’t—” he interrupts pitchily. “You fucking can’t.” He stands up, sits back down, stands up once more, fists clenched at his sides. And at Alec’s side, Raj bites back a laugh. “Just fucking—Go the fuck home and learn your fucking lines. Learn your fucking character. I honestly can’t deal with you right now. You’re a fucking disappointment. You think just—just because you’re good, you can—”

He throws down his playbook, storms childishly away, probably to collapse on the red velveteen couch he keeps in the glorified storage closet he calls his waiting room. ButAlec only smiles apologetically, bows at a blinking Raj, as Raphael—director’s assistant, part-time makeup artist, all around stage mom—nods sympathetically, dismisses the rest with a wave of his fingers.

Alec’s shoulder slump. He can feel tears gathering around his eyelashes, dragging against the thick black along his waterline. 

“He loves the sound of his own voice,” Jace, one of the stage hands, his best friend of three years, whispers, slinking forward. To squeeze his shoulders. Pressing their cheeks together to speak in between soft presses of his fingers. “He’s throwing a tantrum. He doesn’t mean what he says. Everyone forgets their lines once in a while. It’s not like you aren’t the best he’s ever directed.” 

Alec grimaces, tenses, but doesn't move away. 

“So let’s go get some food while the baby calms down.” 

 

Jace blinks at him in the hard afternoon light as he speaks around a fry. Enthusiastic, yet slow syllables, his voice a languid drawl of British accent, and something special in between. 

They’ve been best friends since theatre club in freshmen year. When they sat next to each other—in a show of loner kid solidarity—eating White Chocolate Macadamia cookies, discussing their favorite films. They had clicked. Something like kindred spirits, Jace insisted. Believing in that type of thing. Later indulging Alec’s eventual shameful confession to the dreams. To the draw. The constant tug. The almost human shaped hole in his soul. 

“You’ve been really distracted lately,” Jace observes. “Is it the dreams again? Is it him?”

They’ve been a constant companion, a persistent presence. And they’ve been getting more vivid. Bleeding and intruding into real life. Pressing insistently against his temple. Blinding his field of vision. Assaulting him with confusing, half-formed fantasies. 

Alec nods slowly, taking a long draw of his coke. 

The dreams have adapted with age. Morphed and evolved with his needs. And he’s not always a lover. Not always a him. Just a somebody. A somebody important. Occupying a too large place. Compelling him forward. There’s always a magnetic draw, the need to press tighter, touch more. Sometimes—sometimes he loves him, kisses, holds him back. Claims and breaks and devastates. With eyes—chocolate brown, cutting, liquid, black— that haunt. Scorch.

Alec feels the pang across multiple lives, across multiple universes. 

And Jace believes him, says it’s because Alec’s heart is too open, or that this somebody is just too important. Your red thread. Your fucking destiny. Over and over again. 

“It’s like—tapping into something. It’s like peeling at the veneer—This, this play—it’s like these are things we did at one point. Like I loved him with these words.” Alec scratches hard at the back of his head, as he exhales loudly. Jace’s hand closes around his wrist. “I told him I loved him under those apple trees, you know. I—I held his hand. I kissed him. I loved him. Just exactly like this.”

Jace nods solemnly, drops his hand, reaches forward with the other to tap against the lid of his fountain drink, fingers dancing as his lips purse in thought. 

“You’re getting close to the source,” he notes, tone heavy. “You’re gonna find him soon.” 

Alec shakes his head. Wonders whether it’s better or worse for his best friend to enable this delusion. Whether it’s better or worse to know that it’s all been prearranged before this. That it’s just pole meeting pole, matter fusing together once more. A sort of breakdown from complex to simple. Atom finding atom. Converging anew. Puzzle pieces fitting together. You becoming whole once more. 

Jace keeps insisting, and Alec isn’t even sure he knows what he wants. 

“I’ve been in love with him since I was 7 years old. That’s 14—14 fucking years.” 

“No,” Jace says, squinting thoughtfully, nail scraping against plastic. “No, you’ve been in love with him much, much longer.” 

 

Alec’s character is named Lee. The play is called Of Orange Blossoms and Painted Faces, an edgy, unapologetic exploration of sex, sentimentality, sin, forbidden love. In turn of the century, the tagline reads. One man dares to dream, dares to love. It’s bold. Controversial. But still classy, all the sex scenes filmed in silhouettes billowing behind golden sheets. 

Lee is a circus performer. A clown. A born entertainer. With a shameful secret. A love that dares not speak it’s name. 

Alec plays opposite Raj, an ambitious, talented sophomore. Soft-voiced, soft-hearted, but hard where it counts. Sleek muscles, dark eyes, and a certain understated aggression. John, a lion tamer, hot-headed, demanding. He drags Alec by the hips, tugs at his wig, smears at Alec’s painted face. 

Alec tries not to breathe hard through his mouth, clench his eyes shut, scrape his own fingernails against the crown of his head. Torn between exorcising the vision and chasing the overwhelming headlines off it. 

And Meliorn tries not to have a stress headache. Fails at it, mostly. Raphael and Jace sooth him through it, but they’ve been preparing for so long. 

Raj blinks at Alec, smiles sheepishly. In an almost apology. 

 

And they have been preparing for a long, long time. Months. Production started right after a successful rendition of A Christmas Carol. They melt now in their stage makeup, fanning themselves with the collars of their costumes. 

It’s been intense. 

Late nights in the humid gym, running lines and blocking scenes. 

Long weekends spent in cramped dorm rooms—usually, almost exclusively Raphael’s—watching period films for research, getting into character.

And early mornings, like these. 

Alec, crosslegged, laughs as he watches Clary and Simon flirt, tease, throw shit at one another, smear paint on each other’s skin. In half hour intervals of working hard, slacking off, as Raphael chides them in sharp growls. At which point they curl forward, murmur in mocking imitation as they paint in broad, smooth strokes, tongues peeking out in concentration, dark and red heads pressed together. 

Alec’s body is twisted, spine curved. With a yellow highlighter between his teeth, annotating his lines, whispering them softly to himself in between mouthfuls of Costco Supreme pizza. 

It’s a Wednesday, four days after their last rehearsal, and Alec is watching the way the muscles shift underneath Clary’s arms, zoning in and out of consciousness, flirting with another almost memory. The whisper of fingers across Alec’s navel, the sharp smell of oil paint, stained fingertips and Alec’s voice—his voice in another time—I’m your muse, I’m your muse.

“You’re pretty when you do that,” Clary says absently, blinking up from where she’s painting a cloud, interrupting Alec’s thought, eviscerating the almost memory.

Her canvas is still more white than blue. Ten days, Raphael had insisted just a half hour before, toeing at the canvas with the tip of his sneaker. Ten days, Clary, I fucking swear. 

“When you scrunch up your face,” Clary continues, laying her brush down. “When your eyes glaze over like that. Really pretty.”

She holds up a thumb in approval as he nods and laughs. But Alec still finds himself flushing darkly. At Clary’s side, Jace’s face twists into a wry grin, his eyebrow raising and lips curling in a “this girl” face. 

Alec snorts. 

But Raphael’s scold cuts clear through the gymnasium. Sharp, biting, Alec thinks, and Jace grimace, mock him once more as he turns around. 

Raphael curses them absently, as if sensing it. And then continues venomously informing them that he could probably find some extra eager freshmen from the Theatre 101 class that would take this seriously. Maybe even fucking high schoolers. You know, people that didn’t have the attention span and maturity of a pair of kindergarteners. 

Raphael has a soft spot for them, though. And he smiles back begrudgingly as they grin at him from underneath their twin Theatre Homie visors. 

“Really pretty,” Clary repeats, wiping at the corner of her mouth, smearing gray paint on her hoodie sleeve. 

 

And there’s that small comfort, Alec thinks. That Thursday, when another dream comes unbidden, as he attempts to unwind, flipping through the channels on his satellite TV. He lingers on an independent Logo film, tilting his head to side, thumbing absently at his bangs. The female lead—one of the female leads—explodes in an climatic fit, confesses that she can’t lie to herself any longer. They tear at their clothes as they fall into each other. 

And Alec remembers soft hands sliding down Alec’s stomach with a tense, breathless question. Stolen kisses, the wax of another woman’s—because Alec, Alec is also a woman, terrified but wanting—lipstick mixing with her own as pink, delicate fingertips ease ease eased their way under a tight skirt, past polka dotted cotton until Alec couldn’t breathe. 

He’s pretty, at least, he recalls, as he wheezes, head spinning, hard. 

He’s pretty, even though it hurts. 

 

It always, always hurts. 

Even when it’s beautiful. Even when it’s amusing. Even when it just passes the time. 

It aches. It stings. It—he bleeds. 

Whenever they meet, he imagines, dreams, remembers. Whenever they collide, it’s cosmic. 

And the scars, the scars don’t quite heal. Not quite right. Not all the way. They translate across lifetimes. Stitched ugly and jagged along the edges of his heart. Multiply with every subsequent explosion. It’s the perpetual, painful, perfect ripple effect. From that one point in time when they were meant to be, never learned to let go. 

And the man, he—Alec’s fated one—knows where to press down to make it even worse. Knows where it hurts the most. The man—his soulmate—has made Alec bleed, in the past, in other lifetimes. He’s scrapped against him, left him crooked and broken, and Alec, Alec’s made him bleed, too. Torn him open. Broken apart all the fragile beauty in him. Always desperate, desperate to keep or otherwise ruin for anybody else. 

Because even in infinite time with infinite loops, Alec's sure that in every single one, he was supposed to love this person. This soul. 

And Alec just moves with the sluggish heaviness of a romantic without purpose until then. Because Alec knows that he, he exists for this moment, too. They are parallel lines, parallel lives until they collide, coalesce, explode, devastate one another. Love, love, love, .

But at least, Alec reasons, he’s pretty. 

And at least, when Alec finds him, he’ll be wanted back. Loved in the most deliciously tender, painfully beautiful way. Before... before he shatters. 

But all he has right now, all he can cling to are the half-formed, shrouded memories. The ones he’s too scared to plumb further. 

 

That next Monday, second to the last rehearsal, another day dream intrudes. It’s the richest one yet. 

The smell of alcohol is sharp in Alec’s nose, and Alec can taste him. Feel the burn on his skin where he was touched. Marked. Loved. And his chest, his skin is too tight as he meets his eyes in the fading light of their tent. He takes him, smothers his moans with a hand pressed tight to Alec’s trembling lips. Rushed and hot. And then again, the flame is licking across the planes of his face as he kisses away his whimpers, tearing him apart piece by piece until he’s pure sensation, pure need. 

Alec jerks awake with a sudden jolt. Gasping, gulping for air, and he’s trembling in his costume, he’s hard in his loose pants. 

“You’re making it worse!” Meliorn shrieks, as Alec scratches at his head. He tries to force a memory, expel an almost, clear his thoughts. 

Alec jolts, trembles in the present, as Meliorn throws a blunt object—his sandwich—with more anger than accuracy. It bounces off Alec’s feet as he wheezes out a call for his line. 

“It’s not that serious,” Raphael argues back. Voice steel. “It’s not that big of a deal. Fucking chill.”

But it’s in five fucking days, and it is a big deal. And Alec’s understudy—his fucking understudy doesn’t do this, does he? 

Alec shakes his head. His bones feel wrong and his body, a strange fit and everything is hot and foreign and new. And Raphael is cupping his cheeks, thumbing insistently under his eyelids. He turns and screams about how Alec needs a break. He worries after his makeup, then, smearing foundation extra thick under his eyes. “You’re not sleeping,” Raphael notes softly. Alec jerks. Raphael tugs him back. “That impairs your cognitive functions, you know.”Alec nods, and Raphael sighs, heavy and long-suffering as he pats Alec’s head. 

“Stop making me worry about you, Alec. You’re better than this.” 

“But Meliorn—”

“I’ve been doing this for 3 years. Succeeding at it, too. I can handle Meliorn.”

 

A good 15 minutes later, Meliorn returns. 

He breathes slowly. Inhales deeply. Exhales heavily through his pursed lips. Crisis mode. He murmurs absently to himself before penciling in another rehearsal. Just—just for you. With Jace this time. Maybe Raj. Meliorn turns to call for him, and Raj’s shoulders roll smoothly under his tanktop as he nods with an easy smile. 

 

Blocking, character study, method acting means that Raj has become a semi-permanent fixture in his life. 

There’s affection bubbling in Alec’s chest as Raj sits beside him on the stage. Kicks his shoe against Alec’s own as he murmurs about how weird it feels to play at being in love with him. Alec laughs with a nod, mind still foggy, head and heart heavy. And Raj noses softly at the sleeve of his shirt. Raj, softer now that he isn’t playing at aggression, smoothes Alec’s bangs back with a breathed out whiny sentences. “Stop making him mad,” he chides softly. “Stop making me worry.”

“You’re just worried about getting wrinkles.”

Raj kicks Alec’s again. Harder this time. 

 

They’ve got chemistry; they are aesthetically pleasing, a good play of contrasts. And Raj is good. Really fucking good. 

And the way Raj looks at him sometimes, the way he pitches his voice, reminds Alec in a disconcertingly similar way. 

And he shouldn’t be so abrasive, shouldn’t touch him so roughly, drag him into bruising kisses, relentless as he presses against Alec with heavy rolls of his hips. Demanding that Alec—Lee—stop fighting this, just love please. 

And no, Alec was the one begging, scrambling, smearing his makeup against the collar of the man’s costume, scraping his teeth against the man’s neck. Pleading with his touches, with his words please keep me, please don’t leave me I need you I need you I need—

And no, he shouldn’t be taller. Broader. No, he should be pulling Alec down by the nape of his neck, should have Alec curling, gasping as he melts into too-hot, too-perfect, too-heady touches that leave him starved for more. Panting about how he dreams about this. How Alec feels most complete with him. Scraping against him, dragging inside of him, tearing him apart. Even if it’s not quite close enough. Even if, even if he’s always thirsting for more. 

Raj’s grip is unforgiving as he brushes his lips to just the corner of Alec’s mouth.

It’s so vivid, it always takes him a while to recover, breathing labored, eyes glazed, as Raj drops his shoulders back, smooths his eyebrows, smiles. 

 

Meliorn calls him to ask about his schedule, maybe—maybe he can come in again on Wednesday. Maybe noonish. Meliorn has already asked his Sociology professor. He exhales extra loudly in disappointment, voice cracking Alec’s speaker phone when Alec rests his head against his desk, tells Meliorn how he has a history lecture and then Spanish, and he can’t miss either. He’s only taking 9 credits this semester and he can’t afford to miss anymore classes. Can’t afford less than stellar grades if he wants to keep his scholarship. 

“I want it out of your system,” he says. “Can you—maybe after five? I’ll buy you dinner.”

Alec agrees after a pause. 

 

And Alec misses Luke, then. He’d been a legend of sorts. Tall and handsome and charming and kind-eyed and talented. He had been Alec’s mentor, his hero. Impressed, too. Moved, Luke had told him, smiling at him as Alec, dazzled, blinked up at him rapidly through the thickness of his false eyelashes. You play longing well.

Indulgent, Alec later learned. Patient.

And maybe—maybe, the closest Alec ever came to loving somebody else. 

“You’ve got something,” he’d told him, squeezing his knee, as they sat cross legged across from one another, making Alec’s heart flutter in his chest, making his skin feel extra hot beneath the sweat and smeared stage makeup, beneath the heat of approval and acceptance and success. “You’re gonna be a star.” 

But that night after his first show, that night, with his skin burning from Luke’s casual caress was filled with a painfully vivid sticky sweet recollection. 

And Alec, a woman, then. Brunette, blue-eyed, beautiful. “You’re a star,” the man had promised, voice soft and seductive, but sincere. Eyes soft, fingers reverent as they traced along his lips. “You deserve the world. And I’m—I’m gonna make sure you get it.” 

(But he'd left Alec. Cracked her heart in two)

 

And Luke’s passed the torch, and Meliorn just wants his moment to shine, his moment to count. 

 

On Wednesday, Alec recites his monologue, questions why this started. Says that maybe, maybe they should just stop. He chokes on his words. The agony of it, thick in his voice as the lights fade to black. 

And Meliorn, Meliorn is screaming again, about how he can’t quit Alec. No he can’t, not when Alec... not when Alec can do this. 

 

That Thursday, the book jacket sticks to Alec's forehead as he falls forward, head clunking against his Queerness in Theatre book. 

(Alec has other responsibilities, he’d sniffed at Jace. Has other classes. Other commitments. This isn’t his everything like it is for Meliorn. Alec won’t allow it to be his everything the way it is for Meliorn)

And it’s as his nose drags along the spine, catching on the “Discount: Used” sticker, as Alec inhales deeply, in frustration and exhaustion, that old book smell tickling his nose, his own fingers at his temples, pausing to massage across his scalp, mind fluttering between wakefulness and slumber that he starts to almost see.

 

Alec, a tutor, patronized, is perpetually drunk on the scent of her underneath her clothes.

And she’s thick on his tongue, still, when he presses her against bookshelves, hands burning a trail up her spread thighs. He gets lost in the luster of black, black eyes, dancing in the afternoon light.

And in that moment, there’s only the sharp smell of dusty book jackets, fragrant, stifling tickling as his nose, as he buries his face in her neck, licking insistently over her pulse, losing himself in the heat of her body. 

 

Alec wakes up hard, closes his eyes, and fists himself while the memory is still fresh in his mind. The rustle of fabric, the brush of her breasts against his chest, the way her lips—slick and bitten—had looked as they’d parted with every delicious moan. 

Alec circles the crown of his cock, twists at the base, whimpers as he comes. 

His breath puffs white against the embossed red letters of his textbook as he pants. His back and neck ache from the uncomfortable angle. And his cheeks sticks as he lifts his head, scrambles for his phone. 

i was straight, he texts Jace, typing hastily with his non dominant hand, wiping his dirtied one absently along his clothed thighs. i had a dream and i was straight. 

It’s 3 AM, but Jace sends back a ;). Follows with i mean it makes sense that you would be in /one/ lifetime right??????

Alec sends back a fuck you, stumbles into his bed, and chucks off his tacky boxers and sweatpants. 

 

Meliorn is a string stretched taut, stretched too tight. But some of the tension bleeds out of his shoulders that Friday night at Raphael’s apartment.

It’s a shindig, a breather, a chance to blow off some steam, get really, really drunk, and remember that we love each other. 

And Meliorn drinks too much, flirts with Catarina, a pretty dance major a year his junior, an extra in the play. And he’s obnoxious, sloppy, loud, extra shrill, but Catarina smiles at him, wraps long thin arms around Meliorn’s shoulders as they move in a slow, dirty grind. 

Alec, there under strict obligation, in a show of solidarity, drinks just to pass the time, leaning back against one of Raphael’s lumpy couches to watch. 

Raphael shotguns two beers, plants a wet, sloppy kiss on his very surprised, very red roommate’s mouth. Jace drapes himself across Ragnor’s lap, reaching up to ruffle the younger’s hair as Sebastian —petulant and pouting—takes slow sips from his can of Hawaiian Punch. (You’re too young to drink, my little baby, Raphael had said. I can look the other way, but you know you’re too young to drink, my little baby)

And drinking is bad when he’s this vulnerable, Alec knows. Alcohol blurs the lines further. Makes him want and need and it’s so much. But he just needs to not be sober. 

Jace catches Alec’s eyes as he’s pinching Sebastian ’s sides, trying to provoke laughter, and Jace pats his thigh, comes over and drags Alec to the beanbag by Raphael’s kitchenette before motioning him to speak. Jace has this weird sixth sense about these type of things, Alec thinks, dazed, as he drags his nails across the ugly pink leather material, and Jace blinks up at him. 

“Talk, Alec,” Jace says after a moment, casting a quick glance back at Sebastian , who has completely retreated into himself at this point. Knees curled to his chest, eyebrows pinching in a scowl. 

“I’m just—it’s never been this bad, Jace. I’m worried that I’m not gonna be able to rein it in time. And I feel so ugly inside.”

Alec’s on his fifth or sixth beer, and his tongue feels thick, his brain fuzzy. But Jace, Jace is also good at this. At listening, compelling the words forward even when Alec can still hardly make sense of them. 

“And do—do you even know what it’s like?” he asks, blearily as Jace swims in his vision, moves closer to touch his thigh. “Knowing you’re gay and taken at 7 years old? Before—before you’ve even had a chance?”

“No, Alec.”

“I—I hurt myself once over him. I remembered that last night. And it’s what, five days until the play, and he’s not even—I don’t know if he’s even worth all of this.”

“He will be.”

“That’s not fair to me. This isn’t fair to me, Jace. I feel hollowed out, you know. I feel like I’m always just waiting for this. Like this is everything to me, and I’m not—”

“Penelope awaiting her Odysseus,” Jace cuts in. 

And Alec remembers that play, too. Second semester, under Luke’s direction. Remembers the dreams. The rich scent of pomegranates, the heavy kiss of salty air against his skin. He’d been a woman that time, too, a seafarer’s wife, jeweled hands curled around the balcony, eyes narrowed and desperate as they’d watched the selfish sea. 

“I’m not!”Alec insists.

“I know, but it’s just...The point is that there’s something you’re supposed to have. And it keeps tugging you back to remind you. So you don’t forget.”

Alec’s chin knocks against his knee, and he feels Jace’s hand pat along his back. 

“As if I’m supposed to wait and save myself for him?”

“Have you?” Jace asks, his tone delicate.

“Fuck no.”

Jace laughs.

Alec thinks about grabbing Jace’s shoulders, dragging him forward into a kiss just to prove a point to himself, to the universe, to that man that insists Alec is his and has been from the very beginning of time. But Jace’s laughter is dimpled and ringing, and it’s not right, Alec knows. His lips wouldn’t be right.

Alec kicks at Jace’s legs to let him know he’s done, and his best friend rises smooth and slow as Alec scrambles to the kitchen for another beer. 

He’s on his eighth, maybe ninth beer, head knocking against Raphael’s refrigerator magnets, when Meliorn, hair all mussed up, mouth all messy from Catarina’s lipstick, calls him over. 

“Alec,” he says, slow, slurred, but strong. “Come here. I need to talk to you.”

He’s barely a year older, but Alec can see the haggard wariness on his face as he falls beside him on the couch, the telling darkness underlining his glazed, sleepy eyes. 

“You know, your understudy,” Meliorn cocks a finger, and Alec spares a glance at Sebastian . Sebastian ’s face is contorted into something between a scowl and longing as he stares after Hodge, a philosophy grad student and Raphael’s tutor from two semesters ago. Sebastian is sucking his lower lip into his mouth, shoulders straight, eyes soft. And Meliorn leans further forward, voice low, but desperate, distressed. “Sebastian is—Sebastian isn’t—”

“I know—”

“Do you, though? Do you really? Do you know what that’s like?” he asks him pointedly. Alec drops his gaze, scrapes his nail against the inseam of his pants. “To depend on other people?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to replace you, but this is it for me, Alec. Do you understand? This is it. After this, after this, I’m done. I don’t get another chance. And you—you keep just—How am I supposed to—Do you understand?”

His eyes are wide, and their knees knock together as he drags him closer. “Tell me,” he says. “Fucking tell me what’s going on.”

Alec’s mouth opens, closes. 

“I just get—I get...lost,” he say. “It’s like…a memory or a vision or something and I can’t…”

Meliorn sighs heavily, chin knocking against Alec’s shoulder. His words are muffled by the material of Alec’s shirt. 

“You just... you have this sadness, you know. In your eyes. Like this incompleteness. It’s melancholic and fragile and kind of desperate, and that’s—that’s so good for this. It’s just—people want to protect you, and they want to fix things for you. They hurt for you. They hurt for Lee. It’s just—you’re just this delicate, beautiful thing, and fuck. Sebastian is good—he’s a damn good kid— but Sebastian doesn’t have that spark. Sebastian doesn’t make you want.”

Meliorn’s hand falls heavy on Alec’s knee, long thin fingers squeezing hard to emphasize his point. 

“It’s whatever gives you that sadness, right? What makes you so good at expressing want. That’s what—that’s why you keep getting... lost?”

Alec nods slowly, swallowing thickly past the lump in his throat. 

“Fucking fuck.”

Meliorn takes a slow drag of his beer, tongue curling around the tip as he sighs. 

“It’s kind of like... do you believe in soulmates?” Alec asks, tries.

Meliorn blinks with the deliberate, unsteady slowness of inebriation. 

“No.”

“Nevermind then.” Alec shakes his head, and Meliorn follows the movement, eyes heavy-lidded. 

“Just fix it,” Meliorn groans. “Fucking fix it, Alec. You can’t—can’t—please just—Opening night is tomorrow. I need you to promise. ”

He knocks his head back as he takes another swig. Meliorn anchors himself on Alec’s thigh, murmurs something about needing to take a leak. 

 

Alec is starting up blearily at the glow-in-the-dark stars Raphael has plastered to the wall as he thinks. Trying to spell out his own name. Those of his friends. The names he’s called the man, woman, person, he’s supposed to love. And Sebastian plops beside him, annoyance sharp beneath the exterior of almost hero worship that always colors his expression, as he tugs on Alec’s shirt sleeve. 

And Alec’s been trying his patience. Alec’s been hurting his pride. 

“You’re not even trying,” Sebastian starts to say, raising his hand, pressing his finger to Alec’s lips when the elder tries to speak. “You’re not even trying. Jace—Jace told me that sometimes you zone out. Like you get in too deep. You retreat too much into your head. And I get it. But you're not even trying at this point.”Alec opens his mouth. Sebastian glares. “No—no, you’re not.”

“I am

“No, you’re not. You’re not. You just fucking stop in the middle of rehearsal. And you keep apologizing to Meliorn, but not to me. Not to Raj.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I’m supposed to be a last resort. And I want to perform, but I’m also just a fucking last resort.”

And this close, Alec can smell the alcohol on him. Wonders blearily whom he charmed to pull that off. 

“Say you’re sorry,” he mumbles, petulant, the fight and bite leaving his voice. Sebastian is always emotional, but alcohol only makes him worse at hiding it. “Say you’re sorry and mean it. Say you’re sorry and fix it.” 

Sebastian’s head falls heavy on Alec’s shoulder, and Alec can feel the pout he presses to his neck. “Sorry,” Alec whispers back, tapping his chin against Sebastian ’s chin. 

Alec stays like that so long that Sebastian ’s breath deepens with sleep. Alec pets his bangs back, smooths the scowl on his face, lets him fall a little unceremoniously on Raphael’s beat up couch. 

And Alec, Alec is drained, drunk, damaged. 

He just wants to get the fuck home. 

He gives a quick bob in Raphael’s direction as he stumbles towards the door. 

 

“Use it,” Jace laughs, drunk now, too. Lips shiny and pink with what Alec assumes is women’s lipstick, he makes a grab for Alec's arm. Holds Alec back as he blinks up at him through his thick eyelashes, his dimple peeking out. An angel, Alec thinks because he’s drunk, because he’s also sentimental, because Jace is even if Alec can see that the lipstick has smeared into his shirt collar, too. “Don’t ruin it for him, you know. Don’t—don’t ruin it for everybody. I think just—just use it. Channel it. Turn into the skid, Alec. Embrace the chaos.”

Alec nods slowly, drunkenly. 

But they don’t—none of them, not even Jace—understand. 

This is bigger than them. This is his destiny in its entirety, clamoring out for him, drowning out everything else. 

And Alec's just stumbling towards it. Screaming back into the darkness to make sense of it all. 

 

Alec falls into his bed, fully dressed, shoes and socks on. His head lolls to the side as he remembers first kisses, drunken dares. An “I bet—I bet it’d be nice to kiss, you know. Just to try it out, just to see. It doesn’t have to mean anything, right? It’s just—it’s just practice. I mean, we’re best friends. It’s helping each other out.”

The taste of alcohol had been thick on the man’s tongue as his lips had coaxed Alec’s open, cupping his cheeks, thumbing over Alec’s cheekbone in the thick, night air. And Alec, overbold, the pleasant buzz of alcohol singing in his veins had pulled him back into another and another just—just to be sure. 

 

Opening night, and Alec is tense, skin small, heart heavy. A mess of thinly veiled nerves, shaky limbs, trembling lips. He breathes hard through his mouth, fans himself as Raphael fusses over Alec’s makeup—thick, caked on white foundation plastered heavy and slimy over his flushed cheeks, red red red on his lips, on his cheeks, black on his brows. He sighs heavily, purses his lips, tugs on Alec’s hair to hold him still. 

“Breathe,” Raphael reminds him. “Breathe.”

Alec can’t. Not quite. Not right. 

Sebastian flutters nearby. Face as tense and worried as his features will allow. Arms crossing and uncrossing, long thin legs jittering as he watches Alec. 

And Jace, as he had during their freshman year, during Alec’s role as Lysander, holds his hands, whispers to him. About how amazing he is. About how this play is in his veins already. About how many scrabble words the school newspaper will use when writing about this. About the stellar performance from the really handsome, really talented Alec.

And Alec laughs breathily, squeezes back hard. 

Jace rubs his thumbs against Alec’s knuckles, presses their foreheads together, and Alec mouths back the words. 

 

But it’s that something that Luke had praised that opening night 3 years ago. It’s that something that journalism majors scribble in their notebooks about. That something that’s his—completely his, completely independent of the man—oozing out of his pores as he squares his shoulders, shimmers in the overhead lights. 

Alec loses himself, sheds his own skin, burns up with the furor of another person’s love. 

 

And he gets mixed up, confused, needy, assaulted with the memory of it halfway through, as Raj—John—leans forward to stage whisper in his ear. 

Because suddenly Raj smells like old leather, paraffin, his small nimble sword thrower, juggler fingers smoothing over the wrinkles of Alec’s costume. They anchor him to the sharp tent pole, hold him down, hold him steady. 

Alec can taste the bitter wax of his own rouged lips as the man tips forward to kiss him. Chaste and closemouthed, but hard, so Alec’s lips part with a soft moan. The man cradles his head, tilts him further downward, his thumb smearing at the thick white makeup as he sighs into his trembling mouth. 

Raj’s hands are on his waist, his mouth near Alec’s trembling lips. And Alec—Lee—lolls forward, protests weakly in a stage whisper because we’re too—this is wrong. The hands tighten, nails scraping against the starched white of his tight costume, and no, no, the hands should be slimmer, fingers softer. There should be soot under his fingernails, a childhood scar painting the area between the second and third knuckle on his left ring finger. 

The clenching in his chest only grows tighter, constricting against his lungs, his heart, until he can’t breathe. Until his entire body feels tense with it. 

And he trembles, doesn’t will it away, just lets himself feel. Lets himself ache. 

He goes through the motions of being loved. Being implored. Being needed. Being hidden. Being forbidden. Being torn apart. Being broken. 

Uses it. Uses it. Uses it. 

 

The heaviest stage production is in their acrobatics. Bungeed, spandexed dance majors—Catarina, Kaelie, Duncan—drawing attention, raising expectations. 

But it’s Alec’s monologues—distressingly simple things—under harsh stage lights, that define the play. And those, those are the hardest for him. Trying things that have him accessing an ugly, vulnerable part of himself, raw and open and so painful to the touch. 

It’s vocalized fear of discovery. Fear of surrendering. Fear of feeling. Fear of everything. 

And that’s what makes the play sympathetic. That’s what makes it real. 

It’s Alec. Like this. His voice wavering, thick and raw, eyes shining with tears, hands wrung together, body stiff. 

What’s the point, Alec thinks, sobs out. If we’re not ever allowed to be real? 

And Alec almost whimpers at those same words. Hot and delicate and fleeting against Alec’s trembling lips. In an inverse. The man breathing them as he cradles Alec’s face with a painful tenderness. 

“I can’t want you the way you want me to.”

And Alec’s heart shatters, cracks open as he bites back a whimper. 

In the present, he’s blinking back tears, voice, heart broken.

“I can’t,” he says. “I’m not,” he insists. 

And Meliorn is gaping at him and Jace is blinking rapidly and Alec’s heart won’t slow down. 

It cuts to black as he reaches forward, voice and eyes and entire body heavy and dark with sadness and need. 

“I can’t. I won’t.”

 

The applause—the deafening applause—is white noise. 

He’s numb as Raj throws an arm around him. As the other actors—Raphael, Camille, Dot—crowd over him, squeeze his hand. As he bows, Alec is completely numb save for the dull ache, the racing pulse of his overwhelmed heart. 

As the velvet curtains fall with a heavy, whooshy drop, Meliorn bounds forward to squeeze Alec’s face between his hands. Kiss him squarely on the mouth. And Sebastian reaches forward to pull him into a tight, bony hug. And Jace tugs him away, too, musses Alec’s hair. And Alec thinks maybe at one point Raphael kisses him, too. And somebody that smells and feels like Clary throws a light arm around his shoulders. And there’s praise—too loud compliments—flitting past his ears as Raphael peels off his clothes, drags a makeup removing wipe over Alec’s slow blinking face. 

“Dinner!” Somebody is screaming. 

“Drinks!” Somebody else counters. 

“Alec!” Meliorn interrupts to kiss him again. This time on the cheek, patting his side affectionately. “Fucking Alec!”

Alec registers it in kind. The pain, the warmth, the wetness, the love and affection, the cold hardness of his backstage bench as he shifts uncomfortably in his own skin. In the after acting, after memory daze. 

A sharp, sudden ache—bone deep, stinging burn—manages to pierce through the stupor of it as he realizes that tomorrow he’s going to have to again. His head lolls forward, and Sebastian is telling him he’s not allowed to be in a weird funk. He’s not allowed to be sad. Not, not after what he just managed to do on stage. 

Sebastian’s voice and hands are softer—softer than Raphael’s—as he hands over Alec’s pants, his shirt. And Alec nods, smiles even as he sits there in his boxers and undershirt. 

Jace tsks at Alec to hurry the fuck up, everybody else is done. They’re gonna meet at Applebee’s. 

And Alec registers the annoyance, too. The warm blip of anger, the scrape of denim and cotton as he tugs on his clothes. 

Jace hauls up, arm tangled with his as they stumble out. Alec flushes hot in the night air as Jace supports his weight, tells Alec, too, over and over again how proud he is. 

Alec chokes on a laugh as he sags against the red brick building, feels the cool stone scrape against his still numb skin. Waits for it to pass. 

Jace lingers at his side, chin near his temple, hand around his elbow, voice in his ear, rising and falling with his lilting voice. A lullaby of sorts, comforting in its tenderness. 

 

Sensation returns to Alec’s limbs when he spots him. Sudden, surprising as he catches his eyes. Fuck those eyes. 

He’s lingering by the doors, brandishing a bouquet. A dance student, too, introducing himself as a senior in a rapid rush. Out to see Catarina—my best friend, he laughs—watch her performance. And the man blinks quickly as he catches Alec’s eyes, taps his bouquet absently against his thighs. He closes the distance in two strides. 

Jace raises an eyebrow, then nods quickly, dropping Alec’s elbow. With a small, secretive smile. 

Jace was there, too, that time, Alec wants to tell him. Face different, paler, harder, but eyes and smile the same. A tightrope walker, dimpled, knowing, a confidant. He would stand watch at their tent. Hold Alec as he trembled with the after effects of their sweeping, consuming love. Jace—Jace followed him, too, from that life to this life. They are kindred spirits, and Alec wants to tell him. 

But Jace is leaving. And the man is clenching and unclenching his fists as he stands there. And Alec’s entire body feels raw and exposed as he catches his eyes once more. 

Alec swallows hard. The man spares a glance at Jace’s retreating form. 

“My name is Magnus,” the man says, and Alec blinks in confusion. Magnus flushes. Alec has seen that shade of pink coloring his face before. Dusted light and shy after first kisses, blooming warmly as they’d rolled into each other on sticky summer nights, blossoming and spreading to his chest after exhausting thorough uses of Alec’s body. 

Magnus laughs. “I’m sorry I just—I’m sorry you looked—My name is Magnus. This—this is for you.”

Alec continues to gape. The man—Magnus—shifts uncomfortably. Wiggles the bouquet once for Alec to take it. Alec does. Grips it too hard so the flowers wrinkle. The man’s eyes do, too. And fuck those eyes. 

This moment in time, Alec wants to say, this very moment, is like coming home again. But his tongue is too thick in his mouth. And everything is so, so, so vivid and overwhelming. And his chest is too tight. And his heart—is trying to escape. And he can’t fucking breathe. 

Alec had only been dimly conscious before, the man—Magnus—a distant fleeting abstract. But Alec now feels hyperaware, the sensation almost painful as his heart turns over in his chest. 

We belong together, Alec’s entire body screams. We were one at one point. For one glorious moment in time. I loved you once. I loved you many, many times. And I need—I need—

He’s lethargic in the beats between breaths, his chest, his chest contracts sharply, expands, brimming, overflowing with sudden love, with sudden, sharp need. What he’d felt before, what had been so powerful, he’d ached, was only an echoed, diluted fondness. It’s dizzyingly intense, multiplied tenfold, leaves him reeling. 

And he still hasn’t spoken. 

But he makes a sound.

Alec’s eyes crinkle downwards as his face scrunches in momentary confusion. And Alec remembers how to move his mouth. 

“You,” he says finally. “You”

And Alec’s face contorts into something familiar. A phantom memory, the phantom pain of a long forgotten injury. But it’s still there. He’s still—here. 

“Me,” he agrees. “Magnus.”

“Alec,” Alec offers. “My name is Alec.” 

Magnus reaches forward to take his hand. The scar isn’t there, but Alec fights down the jolt, fights back a shudder as a warm, perfect palm presses against his own. 

 

Applebee’s is within walking distance, and Magnus shoves his hands into his pockets, sharp shoulders slumped as he walks with Alec. Starts and stops various conversations with him. 

“Do you—I mean have you—”s mixing with the thump of their shoes against concrete. 

“You were really amazing,” he manages as they cross the street, and Alec crinkles his flowers further as he hums in acknowledgment, voice still raw in his throat, heart still raw in his chest. His fingers itch to cut the formalities of it all. To pull Magnus into a kiss and demand he love him again. 

Alec shakes his head to clear his thoughts, and Alec’s lips purse in thought. 

“This is,” he starts, turning to face him. And the neon light falls beautifully on his sharp cheeks, caressing his face in soft yellows, oranges, blues. And that’s—that’s new, Alec thinks. Never has Alec ever wanted to kiss the breath out of him in the parking lot of a family restaurant. Never has he admired the way the neon glow casts shadows across the contours of his face. “This is gonna sound...weird,” Magnus continues. “But I—” he sighs. “You.” He speaks with his hands, motions up and down Alec’s body. “I know you. You—you’re—”

Alec shudders, drops his flowers. “Dreams,” he interrupts. Magnus nods slowly, carefully. “You have—dreams about me and you? From—from before?”

“Yes,” Magnus says. “And it’s weird, but I—I know you. And I—”

“Love me,” Alec finishes. 

Magnus’s bangs fall in his eyes as he bows his head, and Alec itches to reach forward and brush them away. Cup Magnus’s cheek, thumb over his dark eyebrows as he cradles his face, lets him feel how treasured he is, holds him as close as he possibly can. 

But Magnus lets out this soft sound, low in his throat. And fuck those eyes as he peeks up at Alec from beneath his eyelashes. Fuck.

“Let’s—let’s go inside.” 

 

Magnus sits with his best friend, Catarina, and her dancer friends while Alec plops down at a table with Jace, Raphael, Sebastian and Clary. Alec eats, laughs, feels Magnus’s eyes on him as he does. 

Later that night, as Alec is preparing to leave, Magnus presses a folded napkin to Alec’s palm. 

Alec flushes as Jace whoops. 

 

Alec lays in his boxers, sheets and bedding twisted near his feet, fingers tapping absently along his stomach. A glance at his bedside alarm reveals it’s 2:13AM. 

hi, he sends after much deliberation. Typing, deleting, retyping i love you.

it freaked me out, Magnus responds, a minute later.  
when you asked me if i loved you

im sorry

i /do/  
that freaks me out  
it was easier when you weren’t real  
when you were an idea  
i dont know what to do now that ive found you

Alec stares at his phone for a good minute. Types and retypes. Sighs.

can we meet up  
just to talk about this

yeah

im free thursday, friday

friday

coffee at the cafe near the philosophy building? 4ish?

yeah

Magnus sends a smiley face emoji, and Alec a winky one. He turns off his phone before he has a chance to regret it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec is almost scared to shatter the sacredness of the moment. Afraid to breathe too hard, touch too fast, speak at all. But it’s Magnus that does first. Manages a breathless huff of “so much better than my dreams.” Laughing loudly, pressing it tight to Alec’s clavicle. “Dream you—memory you—doesn’t—doesn’t move like that. Fuck, Alexander.”

It’s easier, now. That Magnus is real. A man—real, flesh and bone, and soft soft skin—who loves him back. Kind of. Sends him pictures of his face at various times in the day. Texts to ask him how his day is going. His favorite color, song, book, movie, actor.

It’s easier now to go into that dark, heavy, vulnerable place. Now that he knows he can come back safely. Hold onto the safety net that is Alec’s reality—Alec’s existence—real, after all this time.

Meliorn still kisses him after performances (much to Alec’s chagrin). Sebastian hugs him so, so tight. And Alec laughs as they ruffle his hair, thumb teasingly at his tears.

 

Magnus is punctual. Hums as he sets his iced Americano across from Alec’s green tea latte, smile wide and open. Alec’s grin is one of relief.

“Tea,” Magnus notes, laughing as he sits near him. “One time we—you—You were one of those courtesans. And you sang to me. I—I came in my pants. And we—”

“You broke my heart,” Alec cuts in. Magnus’s eyes flash with something brief, vaguely ugly.

It’s fleeting, but his back stiffens, doesn’t relax even after he’s softened his eyes.

Bitterness laces his voice. “You broke mine back.”

Alec doesn’t know how to respond, so he sucks his lower lip into his mouth. And Magnus’s fingers are skating over his.

“You always wanted more than I could—” he holds his palms up. Alec swallows heavily. “I wanted—I wanted to give you everything, but it’s always—”

“Doomed”

“Yeah, doomed. We’re always…”

“You’re gonna break my heart,” Alec says.

“And you’re gonna break mine back. Forget me. Hate me. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

Beautiful, violent collisions that remind Alec that he’s alive and that he exists concurrent, coincidental, concentric circles tighter and tighter until they crash, shatter. Falling together only to fall apart. In a devastating, heavy kind of explosion.

We weren’t meant to. We never never never. We always break.

“I never forget you,” Alec counters. “I never, ever hate you.”

Magnus shakes his head. “That’s not true. You’ve told me.”

“I—I lied. And I still want to try,” Alec insists, after a moment. “You—you break my heart in the most beautiful way,” he says. “And I keep coming back for you. You won’t leave, and I don’t want you to.” Alec’s smile is rueful. “I want to try. I want you to try with me again.”

“I—I do, too.” Magnus’s exhales slowly.

Alec’s hands are bigger than his, but he cradles them in his nonetheless, delicately as if Alec is extra fragile.

“It was your eyes,” Magnus says after a beat, a pregnant pause that leaves Alec jittery, just slightly off-kilter. Too scared to hope too much.

“Yeah?”

“They’re—they’re big and your eyelashes are so thick. Your eyes, they kinda... deep hazel. Kinda... leave an impression. They’re so—you’re so—beautiful.”

Alec covers his hot blush with a loud laugh.

"That laugh too," Magnus sighs, tracing circles along Alec’s knuckles. "It’s—it’s not that attractive. But it’s you. It’s like, it’s so pure and genuine and you."

“It was your eyes, too,” Alec breathes.

Magnus blinks slowly.

“Yeah, like that.”

“When?”

“Eight. I saw your face in a history book. You were a ballerino in France. Your form,” he groans.

“You were an actor in a Japanese film.”

The so that’s why you goes left unsaid. But hangs heavy in the air nonetheless.

“I loved you. I love you.” It’s easy to say. Easy to feel. Now that Magnus is real, swiping his thumb at Alec’s wrist.

Magnus smiles, just a slight, shy quirk of his lips. He bites it back, flushes. “God, I do, too. It’s just kinda—ah—overwhelming, you know. For this to be real. It’s still kind of weird... to be touching you after—after all this time.”

“But it’s a good weird, right?” Alec tries. His heart catches, stuttering to a stop at the beautiful wistfulness glimmering in Alec’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Magnus says after a beat. “It’s really, really good. And I want to—I do want to—I think we should try again.”

Magnus releases his hand, takes a long, long sip from his coffee, and Alec wants to kiss him. Wants to taste the coffee on his tongue. Because that would be new, too, he thinks. And he just really wants to touch and be touched back.

Alec reaches forward, thumbs at his mouth, and Magnus’s lips part. His eyelids shutter, and he breathes Alec’s name in a soft question. Alec shifts his hand, rubs slowly along his jawline, drops it to rest against his neck. He can feel Magnus’s throat vibrate as he speaks. Magnus lolls forward.

“But I really want to... not—we hurt before. I don’t—I don’t want that. I think before it was always too fast. I think we need to honor this time. Go slow. And just—let us be. Just you and me. Magnus Bane. Alec Lightwood.”

“You want to date me?” Alec laughs. “Go steady.”

Magnus’s throat bobs with his own laugh. Quiet, ringing, warm. Alec cups it with his palm, wants to treasure it forever. “Yeah. I want to love you the right way. This—this time at least.”

I’m here now, Magnus’s smile seems to say. I’m yours, the hands at his wrist seem to whisper. We could—we could be, his eyes seem to promise. And Alec remembers what those hands felt like, pushing him away. How those lips had rounded around countless goodbyes. Eyes unforgiving and ugly and wrong.

We always find each other only to break apart, Alec thinks. We always hurt.

And he remembers the sharp, ugly taste of heartbreak mixing with sake, with whiskey, with tequila, with mead. He remembers the dry cotton mouth of a hangover, regret, love lost.

But there’s still that tug—muscles compelled forward, eyes dragged to that disconcertingly beautiful face, those distressingly perfect eyes—and there’s that love. And Alec wants to press flush against him, erase all the boundaries. They belong.

But he swallows instead. And Magnus blinks up at him as Alec drags his thumb across his Adam’s apple. There’s a familiarity in that, too. As Alec remembers the whisper of his eyelashes kissing against his nose, his neck, his chest, and the taste—the heady musk—of that warm skin in the afterglow of something beautiful.

Alec knows they can be beautiful.

 

And dating Magnus is an exercise in exorcism. A ritual towards replacement. It’s disavowing themselves of all of their infinite befores, when they made each other hurt, broke what they had. It’s outwardly casual, restrained, cautious, but potent, heavy with the memory of their ugly, jagged pasts. With the promise to make it better this time. Make it last.

And their movements are deliberately languid, the most exquisite and overwhelming slowness. Alec tries to savor every second, luxuriate in the reality of this Magnus. His Magnus. Now and real.

Because Alec is already desperately, pathetically in love. But this learning to love him again. Love him for real. Love him for the him he is right now. Magnus Bane, who wears makeup, obsessed with electronic-heavy beats, Lifetime movies, Taki’s takeout. Magnus, who is very fashinable, smells like sandalwood and Altoids Cinnamon, taps his fingers in nervous tattoos of 2-2-1 every time he catches Alec’s eyes. Magnus, who laughs with his eyes, hugs with his whole body, hums high in his throat, cheeks bright pink every time. Alec reminds him he’s beautiful, that Alec is so, so in love.

Because try as he might for blank canvases, clean reboots, fair chances at real love, the words itch at his throat, tease at his tongue until he declares them recklessly, inopportunely.

“You remind me all the time,” Magnus tells him, on their fifth date, one month in. He’s flustered as Alec leans forward to whisper it once more, fingers ghosting at Magnus jawline, touch intimate, tender in McDonald’s fluorescent light. “Even when you’re not—even without your words. Your eyes are so full of it.”

Alec’s heart is even fuller, though. Almost too heavy in his chest. Love overflowing so that it seeps his veins, stains his words whenever he’s with Magnus.

“I can’t help it,” Alec responds, without a trace of remorse in his voice, only the faintest, most affected pout on his bottom lip as Magnus’s ears flare bright red. “I can’t help it when I’ve been wanting you for so long. When I can finally have you.”

 

Magnus leans forward to kiss him hard before he leaves that night. Presses Alec tight against Alec’s stuccoed wall, the cotton of his shirt scraping against awful-looking polkadot wallpaper as he murmurs that he wants Alec to think of him only. The real him. The him that he controls. Not the befores. Not the ones that weren’t enough. No, Alec should think of the only Magnus that matters. The one that loves Alec back even though it’s scary and doesn’t make sense. The one that’s pressing against him right now, mouthing slowly and carefully along Alec’s throat.

Alec nods dumbly, tugs Magnusup to his height to kiss him again. But deeper. Openmouthed. Wet.

And Magnus’s mouth tastes familiar, hot, comforting, but in a long-forgotten childhood memory kind of way. It’s a flavor he can’t quite place, ticking at his consciousness. Synapses fried, mouth wet, brain fuzzy with it, as he pulls away to breathe Magnus’s name.

Magnus doesn’t let him get too far. Pulls Alec back to let him taste it again and again, swallow Magnus’s soft breathy sounds, release his own, kiss over and over and over again until their lips are tingling and swollen, and Magnus’s hair is mussed up. And he really, really has to go home now, Alexander.

Alec nods slowly, drunkenly, sucks Magnus’s bottom lip into his mouth as he cradles Magnus’s face in his hands. Just one more time to hold him through, he murmurs. Magnus groans into his mouth as Alec scrapes his teeth, curls his tongue.

Magnus hums, moans, cups Alec’s cheek to hold him back from deepening it further. Alec’s answering hum is imploring, needy. And Magnus’s eyelids are heavy, his eyes hazed over in a distressingly familiar, yet achingly new way. He drags his thumb across the scar on Alec’s left eyebrow, notes absently, recklessly, that this is new, that fuck he needs to explore Alec’s skin. Map every beautiful, perfect inch. Because even just kissing him, even just touching him like this has Magnus aching to—

“Right now,” Alec interrupts, arching forward, hips crashing against Magnus’s, arms tightening around his waist. “You can—you should—I want—I want—With you, I want—so long—”

Magnus groans, disengages more acutely, arms bracketing Alec’s shoulders as he sighs heavily, presses his forehead against Alec’s. Their eyes lock. Magnus’s eyes are heavy and dark and hot on his. “I have to go,” he insists. “I have to.”

And when Alec touches himself that night, it’s to the memory of the raw, unguarded want in Magnus’s eyes. Eyes closed, one hand wrapped tight around his cock, the other tangled in his own hair, as his moans crest and break over Magnus’s name.

 

It's just another month before—a total of two official courtships—before Magnus follows through on his promise.

And, it’s fast—too, too fast—to feel this desperate, to be this affected, to be this invested.

(But in the mean time, Sebastian , face pinched in worry, comments on it almost absently, long legs tucked underneath him on Raphael’s lumpy coach. He leans forward to rest his hand on Alec’s shoulder, falsely casual in a stutteringly endearing way, with an I’m happy for you, Alec, honestly, but I think—maybe—he’s nice, and you guys are good—but I just don’t want you to get hurt from wanting and needing so much so soon. Because you know how intensely you... love, and I’m just trying to—look out for you. At his side, Raphael nods almost imperceptibly but decidedly, and Alec takes a long swing from his bottle, shrugs slowly as Sebastian waits for a response. Jace provides it instead, rambling, his voice slurred with alcohol because this is a Fuck Yeah Finals Are Over celebration after all, and it’s his last summer before his senior year. Jace's voice is too loud as he drawls that Alec's found his soul mate, and beside that he’s 21 and definitely knows how to look out for himself, they don’t have to worry. Just look at the beautiful head on his shoulders, okay. And yes it's only been 2 months, but you know when people belong together—it doesn’t always make sense. But it does. Because love, no matter how fast, how intense, always, always makes sense)

And Jace’s never careless when drunk, somehow knows to weigh his words, even as they stumble over one another. But Alec interrupts before he can take it further, clasps an arm around his best friend to reassure everybody that yes, he’s in love and yes, he promises to try not to get in over his head because yes, it’s only been 2 months)

But it isn’t too fast. Because it hasn’t been two months. It’s been 14 years. It’s been countless, infinite lifetimes before that. The vastness of his entire destiny and purpose reminds him with every passing second that Alec’s default, most natural state is one with Magnus.

So he lets Raphael sidle up to his side, tease him about how emotional he is. Because he knows. Watches amused as Sebastian haltingly, awkwardly joins in.

Because Alec knows. By the answering shiver that Alec’s every movement provokes. By the burn and weight of Magnus’s eyes, his touch, his kiss, disengaging too soon, teasing them both, that he feels it, too. Wants it.

But it’s 2 months, 3 days, after they decided to try that Magnus asks to come home with him.

 

The campus has cleared for summer, and Magnus holds his hand—heedless, bright, laughing—as they bound towards his apartment in celebration of his completed essay (for his independent study, he’d begged for an extension, and Alec had held his hand and kneaded his sore shoulders, hand fed him snackfood as Magnus had laugh-sobbed through the entire 13 hour process).

And they’ve been teasing at this since that night. Magnus’s hand maybe just a little too high on Alec’s thigh, his kiss lingering just a beat too long, and his eyes—fuck, those eyes—making quiet, dark promises in the dead of the night after Magnus has made a point of kissing him breathless. But there’s a purpose now. A goal in mind.

Alec fumbles with his keys as Magnus presses solid and firm against his back.

They fall into each other as they stumble through the door. Kisses hot and sloppy and needy. Magnus falls on top of him, presses a knee between Alec’s thighs as he licks his way into his mouth. And Alec, Alec needs so much, then.

Alec tangles his fingers in Magnus’s hair, rolls upward into the hardness of his thigh, moaning into Magnus’s warm, open mouth. Magnus’s hands skitter underneath Alec’s shirt, as his tongue curls with his. And the slick, warm pleasure of it has Alec writhing upward even harder, interspersing breathless pleas with soft, broken chants of Magnus’s name.

And Magnus huffs out a laugh after a while. Pulls back to straddle Alec’s waist, bunching his hands underneath striped cotton, sweeping much more slowly—much more purposefully—over trembling, revealed skin. He tugs insistently until Alec’s shirt is pushed up near his armpits, smooths his hands reverently with a murmured “You’re so beautiful.”

Alec breathes hard through his mouth, tightens his hands around Magnus’s waist as Magnus grinds forward against his navel. Back against his erection. Once, twice, thrice. Moving in tiny circles that has Alec whimpering out more demands. No heat, just need.

Magnus tugs off his own shirt, urges Alec to follow suit. And their bare chests rub against each other as Alec tugs him down, kisses him again, begs him between drags of his lips to just please, they should just please.

“It’s so weird,” Magnus breathes instead, sucking at his neck. Alec bares his throat eagerly. “Because I’ve been touching myself to the thought of you since I first learned what masturbation was. And now you’re mine. And I can't quite—you’re mine."

“I was from the beginning,” Alec responds. “I’ve always, always been yours.”

Magnus hums in acknowledgment, rocks down onto him. “But now I get to touch you.”

“Touch me. Claim me.”

And Magnus, mercifully, complies.

And it’s painful sometimes the way Magnus holds his hand. Knows just exactly how to cup his cheek. Just exactly how to kiss the corner of his mouth. It’s painful in a hauntingly, dizzyingly perfect kind of way. Those light, casual touches rendering him speechless, leaving him reeling. But now, it’s outright devastation when he touches him. For the explicit purpose, Alec registers with a whimper, of completely ruining him.

It’s not nearly thorough enough for the exploration that Magnus promised. It’s a teasing, skimming overview, peeling back clothes. Magnus touching Alec like he remembers. Like he’s memorized all the planes of Alec’s body. Taken note of the especially sensitive areas. Magnus sucks hard just underneath his left earlobe, glides through his sternum. Lingers the longest at the pucker of his nipples, the concave dip of his stomach, the knobs of his hipbones, the swell of his inner thighs. Magnus lingers there the longest, blinking up at him teasingly, butterfly kisses inching their way up his skin as Magnus ignores his cock, sucks marks dangerously high on his legs instead. And Alec can see where Magnus is reaching to palm himself through his tight tight pants, hips rocking smoothly down into his own hand. Fuck that’s—Alec wants to—

Alec tangles his hands in Magnus’s hair, tugs hard until Magnus is meeting his eyes, licking his lips absently with a soft groan of a question.

“I wanna—for you on your knees—my turn—” Alec gestures clumsily, and Magnus grins crookedly, laughs nervously as Alec kneels in front of him, too. Magnus shudders as Alec drags experimental hands down the span of his chest. Magnus’s hard nipples scrape against the palms of Alec’s hands, and Magnus moans as Alec lingers in turn, too. Thumbs, strokes. Magnus’s stomach jumps with every soft sound he releases.

“Have you ever?”

Magnus nods slowly, lips parted, jaw slack as Alec pinches, rolls. “But it's scary with you. They were all—ah—auditions. Practice rounds.” Alec laughs breathlessly as Magnus tugs off his own jeans, boxers, trembles in anticipation. It’s endearing, and Alec leans forward to kiss his nose.

“It’ll be better this time,” he murmurs, shifting, pausing to kiss his fluttering eyelids. “Because we’re supposed to be together. And I love you.”

The blush from Magnus’s cheeks spreads to his chest, and he looks briefly vulnerable in the fading afternoon light. Alec’s breath catches in his throat as Magnus bites on his lower lip, eyes downcast. He murmurs back “I love you, too.”

Alec’s heart aches from looking at him.

“I’m going to suck your cock now,” he informs him, crouching down to do just that.

Magnus groans as Alec takes the first experimental lick, groaning himself at the way it stretches his lips, the tremor that seems to run through Magnus’s body as Alec hums against the crown.

Magnus moans his name, and Alec bends almost fully forward as Magnus’s hands fall to his hair.

Magnus caresses his head as he suckles slow and wet along the head of his cock, eases into with lazy sucks and kisses until he’s sliding down for more, gasping against Magnus’s length.

Magnus’s fingers tease at his jawline, pet along his throat in slow, clumsy sort of reverence. And Alec moans, swirls his tongue, eyelashes fluttering at the musk and heat of Magnus pulsing in his mouth.

Alec grips his hips with one hand, uses the other to fist him as Magnus groans, pitches forward, face pinched in pleasure, eyes clenched shut.

“Come in my mouth,” he urges wetly, tongue dancing over the sensitive crown, humming as he blinks up at him through his eyelashes. “Yeah?”

“No, no,” Magnus insists, voice husky, low. “I think we should—fuck—just get—”

Alec laughs, sure to puff the words out against Magnus’s cock. The latter’s hips jump at the sensation. “Fuck. You think we should fuck?”

Magnus flushes further, eyes opening slowly. Suddenly imploring. “Yes.”

“Then let’s—my room—”

Magnus tugs him up, nuzzles into his neck, breath hot, lips puffy from how much he’d bitten back his moans. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

And Alec’s legs are asleep, slowly coming back to the sensation of carpet burns, sore joints, but he’s falling into unmade sheets with Magnus. Magnus drapes himself over Alec’s bare body. He drags his cock against Alec’s stomach. The muscles jump as he moans at the warm weight of it, the line of transluscent precome that Magnus inadvertently smears on his trembling skin as they kiss again. Slower, now that Magnus controls the pace. Hands running down, pressing. Like they know—of course they know—just where. Distracting. Infuriating.

But Alec knows, too. About the mole on his chest, the one at the back of his neck, the other on his left inner thigh. Knows to pull away from Magnus’s tempting mouth to suck hard on the hollow of his throat instead. Follow with the succulent drag of his tongue as Magnus pants his name.

“Are you gonna fuck me?” he offers in breathless challenge as Magnus rocks down. The head of Magnus’s cock brushes briefly against the base of Alec’s, and Alec manages a much breathier, less sure “Are you?”

Magnus noses at his neck, murmurs a soft “yes.”

Alec reaches back underneath his pillow with a sudden blush, and Magnus chuckles, not unkindly, as he pops open the bottle of lube.

“It was to you,” Alec supplies softly. “You you. Not from before.”

“For me, too. It’s always to you. To my Alexander.”

And then his finger is pressing inside, and Alec is gasping as Magnus glides down. He pulls to rest one of Alec’s thighs over his shoulder, kissing up his calves, licking along his knee. Alec lets himself work down on that fingers, writhes desperately as Magnus adds a second, a third. Alec’s head lolls forward, chin crashing against his collarbone, lip catching between his teeth, entire body shuddering as he watches, feels the ripple of muscles beneath Magnus’s smooth skin as he eases Alec open.

And here’s a brief flare of jealousy. For the people that came before Alec. The people that Magnus counts as auditions, but that had him first. But Magnus couples every delicious drag of his fingertips with a soft, breathy praise. Repeats over and over and over again that he’s wanted this so long, and Alec—Alec is so perfect. So perfect for him. Everything he’s ever wanted. So hot. So tight. And fuck so good, too.

And Alec flushes hot, whimpers as Magnus’s fingernail scrapes at his prostate, pressure firm, almost almost too much. Alec thrashes, the pleasure of it staggering, white hot as it jolts through his veins.

“Gonna come,” he whimpers. “Gonna come. Get inside me. Get inside me. Get inside me now.”

Magnus hesitates, and Alec sobs, as his thumbnail catches on his rim, skims the trembling, puckered flesh. Alec bows, arching towards the caress.

“Are you gonna? Are you gonna?”

And Magnus—now that his fingers aren’t inside him—fumbles with his words. Pantomimes awkwardly.

“How do you want me?” he asks breathlessly, nervous, and Magnus’s hands are firm as they guide him to his knees. Alec shivers in anticipation as he hears the squelch of Magnus lathering himself with more lube. Magnus licks along the dip of his spine, and Alec does his best to stay upright.

And then Magnus is gripping his hips for leverage, teasing his cock up and down, hands tightening painfully as Alec attempts to grind back. Magnus nudges nudges nudges, the crown of his cock stretching at Alec’s rim, as he eases his way slowly inside. Alec’s fists clench into the sheets as he cries out.

Magnus groans against Alec’s skin, sweaty hair tickling along Alec’s back, as his hips rest flush with Alec’s ass. Alec trembles as he shifts. “Fuck,” he breathes, mouth hot. “Fuck.”

And there’s a startling clarity to this moment, free of interruption. Just the heaviness of Magnus’s body, the warmth of his breath, the softness of his lips, the pleasant burn of his body inside Alec’s own.

And it’s the fullness of it, the exquisite stretch, the promise of completion in Magnus’s arms that leave Alec melting into the mattress, but working back weakly, desperately, scrambling for purchase as Magnus drives into him.

Magnus wraps an arm around him, drags him back, licking hotly, whispering filthy nothings as he takes and takes and takes. Alec shivers, savors.

This way he works back on Alec, scrambles for purchase because Magnus is forceful and demanding and perfect. Magnus knows how hard to press, when to withdraw. When to circle his hips, dragging so hot and heavy inside of Alec’s practically wails at the sensation. And Alec trembles, moans, through every delicious thrust and retreat. Entire body suffused with pleasure and love.

And it’s not like he’s never done this before. But it’s never been like this. Pure and perfect and purposeful like this. It’s never felt like falling into place. Like relieving the ache in his bones. Realigning his matter.

The heady resolution of skin on skin leaves him reeling for more. But even then, Alec knows it’s not enough. It’s not. Not yet. He needs—He needs—

Everything. All the yous before this. All the yous after.

But like always, like always, it has to do.

Alec claims in turn as he begs Magnus to go faster, go harder, let him know. That he loves him. Needs him. Needs this, too.

Magnus groans bites down on the dip of his spine as Alec sobs.

And gravity shifts, reverses as Alec is being flipped, falling onto Magnus’s lap. Alec, disoriented, chin lolling against his own shoulder, dazed with pleasure, marvels at the strength of Magnus’s arms, the supple skin stretched tight over muscle as Magnus tugs him forward by the hips. He’s a tangle of puppet limbs as Magnus guides Alec back onto his cock. It nudges against his ass as Magnus pauses to kiss him. Slow and deep as he rolls upwards to press against Alec’s skin.

Alec tugs at the nape of Magnus’s neck, trying to force him harder, and Magnus pants out a broken “yes.”

Alec braces himself on his Magnus’s shoulders, fingers sweaty, scrambling for purchase, as he starts a slow rhythm, bouncing weakly.

Alec’s head spinning as it crashes against Magnus’s throat. He moans into his skin, arches into the tug of Magnus’s fingers in his hair as he rises and falls on his cock.

Alec licks over a mole at the dip of his throat, undulates, grinds down deep, and Magnus locks his hips suddenly. Rolls devolving into snaps, fast, heavy, unforgiving things that have Alec’s nails biting into Magnus’s shoulderblades, moans falling desperately from his parted lips. He clings even tighter, sounds only increasing in volume. He’s dragged into a messy, sloppy kiss as he grinds back clumsily, desperately, collapses forward, limp, needy with pleasure.

Magnus rasps out a husky “touch yourself” and Alec strokes himself as he bites down on Magnus’s neck, babbling desperately, oh God, he loves him. His cock. But also his soul. And God, he never wants him to stop. He needs, too.

It’s a blur of perfect execution. A timeless dance. This is, this is what they’re supposed to be. Together. Like this.

And Alec comes.

There’s a sacredness to sound, to movement, to space. A dizzying hyperfocus. Everything else fading away in an almost severe erosion of white light. And Alec can only think in superlatives, in hyperboles, in poetry. Time stands still. Starts up again with a disconcerting jolt as he feels Magnus pulse, release inside of him.

And it’s a rush of sensation, heat, pure, pure pleasure. Pure electrifying purpose.

And yes, he remembers, this was—this is what makes sense. The new Magnus, Magnus in his current iteration, his Magnus, here, with him, like this.

 

They knock elbows, knees, shoulders in their post-coital shuffle, curling into one another.

Alec is almost scared to shatter the sacredness of the moment. Afraid to breathe too hard, touch too fast, speak at all. But it’s Magnus that does first. Manages a breathless huff of “so much better than my dreams.” Laughing loudly, pressing it tight to Alec’s clavicle. “Dream you—memory you—doesn’t—doesn’t move like that. Fuck, Alexander.”

“You were, you were good, too.”

Magnus presses a laugh, a lazy hum to Alec’s shoulder. And the perfection of them makes Alec’s entire body loosen, muscles lax, brain in a pleasant haze.

Alec is spent. Thoroughly fucked, thoroughly loved.

But vulnerable, raw in the aftermath.

 

In his younger, more naive days, he romanticized the tragedy of them. Trying to rationalize that there’d beauty in sinew, blood, tears. That there was a sort of broken appeal to catastrophe. But Alec knows, that there’s only agony. Only the hollowed out desperation, the aching, starvation, scrambling for scraps of affection, of satisfaction as a post-soulmate, post-destiny, post-purpose man.

Magnus’s consumed him. Ruined him. Left him a lonely, desperate, broken husk.

And it’s not beautiful. It never was. It’s helpless, ugly, so so so painful.

And Alec chokes in the present time as Magnus wraps an arm around him, skin sticky, flushed, beautiful and still, still his.

And the fear is persistent, lodges itself deep in his throat.

As he meets Magnus’s tired, boyish smile, reaches out to brush at the small, lazy crinkle of his nose. Magnus seems to sense it as he leans forward to touch the worry away.

“I don’t want to—,”Alec starts anyway, and Magnus kisses the rest of his sentence away. Alec’s hand reaches back, almost out of habit, to scratch along his head, but Magnus catches his wrist. Moves his mouth away to kiss that, too.  
“You won’t. We won’t. I won’t let us.”


End file.
